World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C)
In January 2000, World Championship Wrestling (WCW)'s executive VP is faced with a challenging decision. He had been appointed the executive VP just three months ago, and was tasked with restoring the company to a profitable position. However, WCW's onscreen product was suffering; ratings for the flagship WCW Monday Nitro (Nitro) program had fallen to their lowest levels in nearly three-and-a-half years. WCW was losing its market leadership position, its viewing audience and even some of its on-screen talent to its major competitor, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). The executive VP faced problems on a number of fronts: a talent roster low on motivation and morale, turnover among both the writing staff and company leadership, and a rapidly shrinking audience. Furthermore, the current instability in leadership meant that another major change would seriously impact the already-low morale among WCW's on-screen talent and support staff.
Swot Analysis of "World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C)" written by Lyn Purdy, Jason Ravesi includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Wcw Wrestling facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Organizational culture, Strategy and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Wcw Wrestling, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Wcw Wrestling operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Wcw Wrestling
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Leadership & Managing People field.
4. Making a Leadership & Managing People topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Wcw Wrestling
Strengths World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Wcw Wrestling in World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Wcw Wrestling in the sector have low bargaining power. World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Wcw Wrestling to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Wcw Wrestling has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Wcw Wrestling has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Innovation driven organization
– Wcw Wrestling is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Wcw Wrestling has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Wcw Wrestling in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Wcw Wrestling has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Wcw Wrestling has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Analytics focus
– Wcw Wrestling is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Lyn Purdy, Jason Ravesi can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Wcw Wrestling digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Wcw Wrestling has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Learning organization
- Wcw Wrestling is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Wcw Wrestling is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Wcw Wrestling to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Wcw Wrestling to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Wcw Wrestling, firm in the HBR case study World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Wcw Wrestling is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Wcw Wrestling needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Wcw Wrestling to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Wcw Wrestling has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Wcw Wrestling supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Wcw Wrestling vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Wcw Wrestling needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Wcw Wrestling is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Lyn Purdy, Jason Ravesi suggests that, Wcw Wrestling is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Wcw Wrestling has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Wcw Wrestling even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Wcw Wrestling is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Wcw Wrestling products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Wcw Wrestling needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Wcw Wrestling has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
Opportunities World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Wcw Wrestling can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Leadership & Managing People segment.
Loyalty marketing
– Wcw Wrestling has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Wcw Wrestling can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Wcw Wrestling in the consumer business. Now Wcw Wrestling can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Leadership & Managing People industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Wcw Wrestling can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Wcw Wrestling can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Wcw Wrestling is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Wcw Wrestling can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Leadership & Managing People segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Wcw Wrestling can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Wcw Wrestling operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Wcw Wrestling can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Wcw Wrestling can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Wcw Wrestling has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Wcw Wrestling to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Wcw Wrestling can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Wcw Wrestling to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Threats World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) are -
Regulatory challenges
– Wcw Wrestling needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Leadership & Managing People industry regulations.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Wcw Wrestling will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Wcw Wrestling with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Wcw Wrestling has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Wcw Wrestling needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Leadership & Managing People sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Wcw Wrestling business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Wcw Wrestling can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Wcw Wrestling needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Wcw Wrestling in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Wcw Wrestling high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Wcw Wrestling in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The Leadership & Managing People industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C), Wcw Wrestling may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Leadership & Managing People .
Increasing wage structure of Wcw Wrestling
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Wcw Wrestling.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (C) is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Wcw Wrestling needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
